Not more than 2 weeks ago, I have been around @ CISCO Live event in Milan, the industry’s premier education and training workshop.

Lazy walking around, I had a very interesting coffee with Giuseppe Paternò (aka Gippa): he was there on the behalf of Canonical (he was in charge to talk about OpenStack), but really our chat turn immediately on security matter.

Security is probably one of the most important issue of these times, – among others, 2013 GNOME FoG campaign has been focused on security – and I think protection of (personal and corporate) data is “the” challenge of next ones.

As user, protection of my digital life is something I really worry about, but if I was a company… OH MY GOSH! Social networks, weak passwords, multiple devices, spyware, malware, negligence or simply oversight (geniuses are known to be differently focused… 🙂 ) how many doors would you like to open? How many temptations for a a blackhat?

What I really like in Giuseppe words has been the effort to make available for everyone his long lasting experience in FLOSS environment to provide a simple solution, called SecurePass.

SecurePass is a SaaS identity and access management backed by strong authentication and Single Sign On. Giuseppe explained me that the idea behind is that each web app and Linux system in the cloud has its own user base, therefore there is no central point of user management and no single way to enforce security policies. SecurePass targets Cloud apps and networks devices, and is currently using open protocols such as RADIUS, CAS, LDAP.

But Giuseppe wanted even more in the new release: he said he wanted it to be easy for developers to integrate it into their core framework, hence the implementation of new APIs and the group management.

Next release is codenamed Dreamliner, and that makes sense , because of Gippa’s great passion for flight: he has a private pilot licence… and he promised me a tour on a Diamond Aircraft DA40NG if I spread the word!!!

Just kidding of course, but this is my way to help the project – and, definitely, a friend.

The beta is there to help Giuseppe in driving SecurePass to something that is useful to both developers and users. New libraries are released as Open Source on GitHub and he’s looking for feedback and patches. Many heads are better then one, so please consider to join the free beta testing: for more info take a look at https://beta.secure-pass.net

My technical knowledge is too poor to allow me to assess a value, but if one of you will leave an opinion, I’ll be happy to read and share!

Yesterday I went to the first Codemotion Techmeetup @Luissenlabs, a centre of excellence as start-ups Accelerator in Rome.

After almost an year far from home, it has been a good opportunity to meet some old good friends, among others Paola “wonderpaolastra” Santoro, from GGD-Rome, to whom we talked about Women in tech.

Born from the experience of Javaday, Codemotion is the event open to all (open) languages and technologies. The Italian stage of international tour will be held in Rome, from 9 to 12 April… If you’ll be around it could be interesting come and say “Hello!”. I attended a couple of editions, and I had a talk about Ubuntu some times ago, but I think nowadays Mara Marzocchi and Chiara Russo, the founders couple, gave to the event a more business oriented perspective.

Networking, Gaming and Hackhaton for a conference sponsored by Google, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, with the participation of international speakers and a huge space for Communities.

C4P is still open till 9 Febrary, and I’m wondering to submit. And you?

I’ve been very impressed during last days from the PRISM affair, but what really touched me, has been the totally mental reaction people had and newspaper spread about this fact.
Far to chime-in Mr Orwell, it is absolutely normal to me that when an authority has the tool and the power to control, it will do.
I was 12 when, for the very first time I realised that not everything of my life could be share on the public square. And internet is, definitely a public square. Social networking implies to be very careful about what could be share there and what has to be private. And private is unwired. There is a world out from internet, the perfect place to share emotions, passions and love.
There is nothing unexpected in the fact NSA checks our lives through internet, but it is in people astonishing about this and shares contents they have shame of.
But this opens of course a huge issue: if internet, and cloud, are so vulnerably to the Big Brother’s eye, privacy becomes a very relevant matter.
I totally agree the effort Open source (and GNOME) are spending for privacy, but is it enough?
When a so massive menace is incumbent over our digital life, could be Open source an answer?

Recently a company I know has chosen as a new leader of one of his most important project a very arrogant person.
I had the opportunity to work with him some times ago, and all the people that met him agree with me about his arrogance.
This man has indubitably a great know-how, he’s brilliant and talented for his work (but maybe less than others) but he is very able to increase his self-branding.
He built in times an image of solid professional, built not on his 20 years experience but on his bad temperament, on his arrogance, his language often remarkable when not openly rude.

The question is: he’s been chosen because or despite his bad temperament?

Some times ago I read an interesting story: a leader of a great company asked to a marketing guru if the fact his company wasn’t as big as Apple depended on he was an humble leader.
The answer was that Apple was a big company in spite of Jobs’ bad temperament.

In the highly controversial Good to Great book, the author, James C. Collins examines the performance over 40 years of 11 companies that became great.
The first of seven characteristics of companies that went “from good to great” is to have an inspired but humble leader.

Although many companies and many project have a strong leader, in my mind the my way or the highway approach is located just a step away from Godfather’s style.

I believe that a leader ought to be flexible, to be a good listener and not only a screaming monkey, he should be ready to learn from his mistakes, he should be aware to be not perfect, but perfectible.
In a nutshell, a good leader is charismatic and inspiring but refuses to be bossy.

A good example of charismatic humble leader is without doubt Mr. Barack Obama, a bossy leader is – unfortunately – Mr Silvio Berlusconi.

To be driven to do what’s best for the company, to be enthusiastic and crowd enchanter is quite different from state own authority with arrogance: in my humble opinion, a bad temperament often could hide skills and talents or – worse – cover a lack of them.

In reverse, an overweening attitude, very often shows an inner weakness and a intimate need to be reassured that immediately ceases when that leader lost his/her power.

That said, if mostly researches demonstrate that good-to-great leaders, it turns out, are humble, why so many bully leader there around?